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Preview Notes PREVIEW NOTES Jonathan Biss, piano Tuesday, March 24 – 7:30 PM Perelman Theater, Kimmel Center PROGRAM (Selection of Program Notes) Sonata in F-sharp Major, Op. 78, À Thérèse Sonata in E-flat Major, Op. 7, Grand Sonata Ludwig van Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven Composed: 1809 Born: December 16, 1770, in Bonn, Electorate of Cologne Duration: 10 minutes Died: March 26, 1827, in Vienna, Austria Composed: 1796-1797 Beethoven took a nearly five-year break from piano sonata Duration: 29 minutes composition after finishing the earth-shaking "Appassionata" sonata of 1804-1805. He returned to the genre only in May This early piano sonata, his fourth, is the longest example of 1809, when the departure of his friend Archduke Rudolph the genre in Beethoven's catalog except for the massive prompted him to begin the "Les Adieux" Sonata No. 26, Op. "Hammerklavier" sonata of 20 years later. Much is made of 81a. Before that piece was finished, however, Beethoven Beethoven the revolutionary, and it is too easy to claim that wrote, signed, and affixed opus numbers to two other piano this sonata's symphonic scope is another mark of the young sonatas, so that, according to the numbering scheme, the man's daring genius. However, this composition, although Piano Sonata No. 24 in F sharp major, Op. 78, is the unusually long, is a fairly straightforward work which immediate successor to the "Appassionata" Sonata. Op. 78 observes the conventions of its day. was a work for which Beethoven had considerable affection. Sonata in G Major, Op. 79 Sonata in C-sharp Minor, Op. 27, No. 2, Moonlight Ludwig van Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven Composed: 1809 Composed: 1801 Duration: 10 minutes Duration: 16 minutes Like the Sonata No. 24 in F sharp major, Op. 78, Beethoven's Beethoven billed each of the two works published under Op. little G major Piano Sonata, Op. 79, was written in 1809. Both 27 as a "sonata quasi una fantasia," presumably a hint that works share several instantly discernible features. Firstly, he was trying to meld the formal conventions of the 18th both sonatas are surprisingly undemonstrative in tone, century sonata with a newer, freer, more Romantic style. revealing a pronounced avoidance of bravura showiness, Many musicians consider the first of this pair, the Piano unwarranted rhetoric, and above all, extravagant Sonata No. 13 in E flat major (1800-1801), to be the superior emotionalism. Where they differ markedly, however, is in work, but the Piano Sonata No. 14 in C sharp minor (1801) is their respective number of movements, since the G major by far more popular; in fact, it is one of Beethoven's most Sonata has three self-contained movements, conforming to beloved works, and its first movement takes a place among established architectural principles, whereas in the earlier the most widely and instantly recognizable music the opus, sonata allegro and slow movements are effectively composer ever penned. The familiar appellation "Moonlight" linked together thanks to the substantial Adagio cantabile is not the composer's own, but the invention of German preface offered before, and leading, without a break, to the music critic Ludwig Rellstab, who compared the first main first allegro. movement's rippling texture to the moonlight shimmering on Lake Lucerne. .
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